Presently available key duplicating equipment for producing copies of existing keys, generally comprise a vise for holding the original key, a stylus for feeling the contoured edge of the key and an arm or lever of some sort guided by movement of the stylus. A key blank is secured in a vise adjacent the arm or lever and movement of the lever either moves the key blank into contact with a cutting wheel or alternatively, in some devices, moves the cutter relative to the fixed key blank. In either event, the movement of the stylus along the length of the original key and in and out relative to the originally formed valleys in the key edge, causes relative movement between the blank edge and the cutter to reproduce on the blank the same contours as appear on the original key.
A second way of producing duplicate keys is to produce them upon blanks based upon known information, i.e., the length and depth of the valleys and contoured edges of the key. This duplication is possible without the use of an original key. For example, the original key itself is commonly formed in this manner.
In the automotive industry, the automotive manufacturers use a pre-determined number of key forms to correspond to a pre-determined number of lock arrangements, as for example a thousand different forms. The keys are manufactured by using cutters or stamping dies based upon known depths and lengths of valleys in the key. These configured valleys or contours are coded. Hence, the manufacturer, and also the dealer, knowing the code of the particular lock installed in a vehicle, can provide duplicate keys to match that code number, which corresponds to the tumbler arrangement of the lock itself. Key duplicating equipment has been devised to reproduce keys from the known code numbered configurations, but such equipment has been complicated, expensive and generally impractical for widespread use on a sporadic basis, i.e., at an automobile dealer who might from time to time need to produce a duplicate key.
Hence, the invention herein is concerned with a key producing or duplicating machine whose purpose is to reproduce or duplicate keys either from existing key originals or alternatively from pre-known code numbered information relating to shapes of key edge configurations. The machine is of simple and inexpensive construction so that it may be used either in key reproducing shops, or in automotive dealer showrooms or shops, service facilities such as automotive clubs and the like who provide service calls, car rental agencies, hotels and the like where duplicate keys may be required from time to time and it is necessary to be able to reproduce the keys without having the original available.